The Sinner

by Tess Gerritsen

  “No, you’re not. Detective Rizzoli is here. I want to talk to Jane.”

  She laughed. A blasphemous sound in that chapel. “You make it sound like I’m a split personality or something.”

  “That’s not too far from the truth. You work so hard at playing the cop, you bury the woman. It’s the woman I came to see.”

  “You waited long enough.”

  “Why are you angry at me?”

  “I’m not.”

  “You have a strange way of welcoming me to Boston.”

  “Maybe because you didn’t bother to tell me you were coming.”

  He sighed, huffing out a ghost. “Can we just sit together for a moment and talk?”

  She went to the front pew and sank onto the wooden bench. As he sat down beside her, she gazed straight ahead, afraid to look at him. Afraid of the emotions he stirred in her. Just inhaling his scent was painful, because of the longing it reawakened. This was the man who had shared her bed, whose touch and taste and laugh still haunted her dreams. The result of their union was growing even now, inside her, and she pressed her hand to her belly to quell the secret ache she suddenly felt there.

  “How have you been, Jane?”

  “I’ve been good. Busy.”

  “And the bandage on your head? What happened?”

  “Oh, this.” She touched her forehead and shrugged. “Little accident in the morgue. I slipped and fell.”

  “You look tired.”

  “You don’t bother much with compliments, do you?”

  “It’s just an observation.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m tired. Of course I am. It’s been one of those weeks. And Christmas is coming up and I haven’t even bought my family any gifts yet.”

  He regarded her for a moment, and she looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes.

  “You’re not happy to be working with me again, are you?”

  She said nothing. Didn’t deny it.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what the hell is wrong?” he finally snapped.

  The anger in his voice took her aback. Dean was not a man who often revealed his emotions. Once that had infuriated her, because it always made her feel as if she was the one out of control, the one always threatening to boil over. Their affair had started because she had made the first move, not him. She had taken all the risks and put her pride on the line, and where did it get her? In love with a man who was still a cipher to her. A man whose only display of emotion was the anger she now heard in his voice.

  It made her angry, as well.

  “There’s no point rehashing this,” she said. “We have to work together. We have no choice. But everything else—I just can’t deal with that now.”

  “What can’t you deal with? The fact we slept together?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind it at the time.”

  “It happened, that’s all. I’m sure it meant about as much to you as it did to me.”

  He paused. Stung? She wondered. Hurt? She didn’t think it was possible to hurt a man who had no emotions.

  She was startled when he suddenly laughed.

  “You are so full of shit, Jane,” he said.

  She turned and looked at him—really looked at him—and was struck breathless by all the same things that had attracted her to him before. The strong jaw, the slate-gray eyes. The air of command. She could insult him all she wanted to, yet she’d always feel he was the one in control.

  “What are you afraid of?” he said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That I’ll hurt you? That I’ll walk away first?”

  “You were never there to begin with.”

  “Okay, that’s true. I couldn’t be. Not with the jobs we have.”

  “And it all comes down to that, doesn’t it?” She rose from the bench and stamped the blood back into her numb feet. “You’re in Washington, I’m here. You have your job, which you won’t give up. I have mine. No compromise.”

  “You make it sound like a declaration of war.”

  “No, just logic. I’m trying to be practical.” She turned and started back toward the chapel door.

  “And trying to protect yourself.”

  “Shouldn’t I?” she said, looking back at him.

  “The whole world isn’t out to hurt you, Jane.”

  “Because I don’t let it.”

  They left the chapel. Walked back across the courtyard and stepped through the gate, which gave a resounding clang as it shut.

  “Well, I don’t see the point of trying to chip away at that armor,” he said. “I’ll go a long way to meet you. But you have to come halfway. You have to give, too.” He turned and started toward his car.

  “Gabriel?” she said.

  He stopped and looked back at her.

  “What did you think would happen between us this time?”

  “I don’t know. That you’d be glad to see me, at least.”

  “What else?”

  “That we’d screw like bunnies again.”

  At that, she gave a laugh and shook her head. Don’t tempt me. Don’t remind me of what I’ve been missing.

  He looked at her over the roof of his car. “I’d settle for the first, Jane,” he said. Then he slid inside and shut the door.

  She watched him drive away, and thought: Screwing like bunnies is how I got into this mess.

  Shivering, she looked at the sky. Only four o’clock, and already, the night seemed to be closing in, stealing the last gray light of day. She did not have her gloves, and the wind was so bitter, it stung her fingers as she took out her keys and opened the car door. Sliding into her car, she fumbled to insert the key in the ignition, but her hands were clumsy, and she could barely feel her fingers.

  She paused, key in the ignition.

  Suddenly thought about lepers’ hands, the fingers worn down to stumps.

  And she remembered, vaguely, a question about a woman’s hands. Something mentioned in passing, that she had ignored at the time.

  She said I was rude because I asked why that lady didn’t have any fingers.

  She got out of her car and went back to the gate. Rang the bell again and again.

  At last Sister Isabel appeared. The ancient face that gazed through the iron bars did not look pleased to see her.

  “I need to speak to the girl,” Rizzoli said. “Mrs. Otis’s daughter.”

  She found Noni sitting all alone in an old classroom at the end of the hall, her sturdy legs swinging from the chair, a rainbow of crayons splayed out on the battered teacher’s desk in front of her. It was warmer in the abbey kitchen, where Mrs. Otis was now preparing dinner for the sisters, and the aroma of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies wafted even to this gloomy end of the wing, yet Noni had chosen to hole up in this cold room, away from her mother’s sharp tongue and disapproving looks. The girl did not even seem to notice the chill. She was clutching a lime-green crayon in a childish grip, her tongue sticking out in fierce concentration as she drew sparks shooting from a man’s head.

  “It’s about to explode,” said Noni. “The death rays are cooking his brain. That makes him blow up. Like when you cook things in the microwave, and they blow up, just like that.”

  “The death rays are green?” asked Rizzoli.

  Noni looked up. “Are they supposed to be a different color?”

  “I don’t know. I always thought death rays would be, oh, silver.”

  “I don’t have any silver. Conrad took mine at school and he never gave it back.”

  “I guess green death rays will work, too.”

  Reassured, Noni went back to her drawing. She picked up a blue crayon and added spikes to the rays, so they looked like arrows raining down on the unfortunate victim. There were many unfortunate victims on the desk. The array of drawings showed spaceships shooting fire and blue aliens chopping off heads. These were not friendly E.Ts. The girl who sat drawing them struck Rizzoli as an alien creature herself, a l
ittle gremlin with gypsy brown eyes, hiding in a room where no one would disturb her.

  She had chosen a depressing retreat. The classroom looked long unused, its stark walls marred by the scars of countless thumbtacks and yellowed Scotch tape. Ancient student desks were stacked up in a far corner, leaving bare the scuffed wood floor. The only light came from the windows, and it cast everything in wintry shades of gray.

  Noni had begun the next drawing in her series of alien atrocities. The victim of the lime-green death rays now had a gaping hole in his head, and purplish blobs were shooting out. A cartoon bubble appeared above him with his dying exclamation.

  AHHHHHH!

  “Noni, do you remember the night we talked to you?”

  The brown curls bobbed up and down in a nod. “You haven’t come back to see me.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve been running around quite a bit.”

  “You should stop running around. You should learn to sit down and relax.”

  There were echoes of an adult voice in that statement. Stop running around, Noni!

  “And you shouldn’t be so sad,” Noni added picking up a new crayon.

  Rizzoli watched in silence as the girl drew gouts of bright red shooting from the exploding head. Jesus, she thought. This girl sees it. This fearless little gremlin sees more than anyone else does.

  “You have very sharp eyes,” said Rizzoli. “You see a lot of things, huh?”

  “I saw a potato blow up once. In the microwave.”

  “You told us some things last time, about Sister Ursula. You said she scolded you.”

  “She did.”

  “She said you were rude, because you asked about a woman’s hands. Remember?”

  Noni looked up, one dark eye peeking out from beneath the tumble of curls. “I thought you only want to know about Sister Camille.”

  “I want to know about Ursula, too. And about the woman who had something wrong with her hands. What did you mean by that?”

  “She didn’t have any fingers.” Noni picked up a black crayon and drew a bird above the exploding man. A bird of prey, with huge black wings. “Vultures,” she said. “They eat you when you’re dead.”

  Here I am, thought Rizzoli, relying on the word of a girl who draws space aliens and death rays.

  She leaned forward. Asked, quietly: “Where did you see this woman, Noni?”

  Noni put down her crayon and gave a weary sigh. “Okay. Since you have to know.” She jumped off the chair.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To show you. Where the lady was.”

  Noni’s jacket was so big on her, she looked like a little Michelin man, tramping out into the snow. Rizzoli followed in the footprints made by Noni’s rubber boots, feeling like a lowly private marching behind a determined general. Noni led her across the abbey courtyard, past the fountain where snow had piled like layers on a wedding cake. At the front gate, she stopped, and pointed.

  “She was out there.”

  “Outside the gate?”

  “Uh-huh. She had a big scarf around her face. Like she was a bank robber.”

  “So you didn’t see her face?”

  The girl shook her head, brown curls tossing.

  “Did this lady talk to you?”

  “No, the man did.”

  Rizzoli stared at her. “There was a man with her?”

  “He asked me to let them in, because they needed to speak to Sister Ursula. But it’s against the rules, and I told him so. If a sister breaks the rules, she gets kicked out. My mommy says the sisters don’t have anywhere else to go, so they never break the rules, because they’re afraid to go outside.” Noni paused. Looked up and said with a note of pride: “But I go outside all the time.”

  That’s because you’re not afraid of anything, thought Rizzoli. You’re fearless.

  Noni began to tramp a line in the snow, her little pink boots marching with a soldier’s precision. She cut one trough, then did an about-face and marched back, stamping out a parallel line. She thinks she’s invincible, thought Rizzoli. But she’s so small and vulnerable. Just a speck of a girl in a puffed-up jacket.

  “What happened then, Noni?”

  The girl came clomp-clomping back through the snow and came to an abrupt halt, her gaze focused on her snow-crusted boots. “The lady pushed a letter through the gate.” Noni leaned forward and whispered: “And I saw she didn’t have any fingers.”

  “Did you give Sister Ursula that letter?”

  The girl gave a nod that made her curls bounce like a head full of Slinkies. “And she came out. Right out.”

  “Did she talk to these people?”

  A shake of the head.

  “Why not?”

  “Because when she came out, they were already gone.”

  Rizzoli turned and stared at the sidewalk where the two visitors had stood, imploring a recalcitrant child to let them in the gate.

  The hairs on the back of her neck suddenly bristled.

  Rat Lady. She was here.

  SIXTEEN

  RIZZOLI STEPPED OFF the hospital elevator, strode past the sign announcing ALL VISITORS MUST CHECK IN, and barrelled straight through the double doors into the intensive care unit. It was one A.M., and the unit lights were dimmed to allow the patients to sleep. Coming straight from the bright hallway, she confronted a room where nurses were faceless silhouettes. Only one patient cubicle was brightly lit, and like a beacon, it drew her toward it.

  The black woman cop standing outside the cubicle greeted Rizzoli. “Hey, Detective. You got here fast.”

  “She said anything yet?”

  “She can’t. She’s still got that breathing tube in her throat. But she’s definitely awake. Her eyes are open, and I heard the nurse say she’s following commands. Everyone seems really surprised that she woke up at all.”

  The squeal of the ventilator alarm made Rizzoli glance through the cubicle doorway at the knot of medical personnel huddled around the bed. She recognized the neurosurgeon, Dr. Yuen, and the internist Dr. Sutcliffe, his blond ponytail an oddly disconcerting detail in that gathering of grim professionals. “What’s going on in there?”

  “I don’t know. Something about the blood pressure. Dr. Sutcliffe got here just as things started to go haywire. Then Dr. Yuen showed up, and they’ve been fussing with her ever since.” The cop shook her head. “I don’t think it’s going well. Those machines’ve been beeping like crazy.”

  “Jesus, don’t tell me we’re gonna lose her just as she wakes up.”

  Rizzoli squeezed into the cubicle, where lights shone down with a brilliance that was painful to her tired eyes. She could not see Sister Ursula, who was hidden within the tight circle of personnel, but she could see the monitors above the bed, the heart rhythm skittering like a stone across water.

  “She’s trying to pull out the ET tube!” a nurse said.

  “Get that hand tied down tighter!”

  “. . . Ursula, relax. Try to relax.”

  “Systolic’s down to eighty—”

  “Why is she so flushed?” said Yuen. “Look at her face.” He glanced sideways as the ventilator squealed.

  “Too much airway resistance,” a nurse said. “She’s fighting the ventilator.”

  “Her pressure’s dropping, Dr. Yuen. It’s eighty systolic.”

  “Let’s get a dopamine drip going. Now.”

  A nurse suddenly noticed Rizzoli standing in the doorway. “Ma’am, you’re going to have to step out.”

  “Is she conscious?” asked Rizzoli.

  “Step out of the cubicle.”

  “I’ll handle this,” said Sutcliffe.

  He took Rizzoli by the arm, and his grasp was not gentle as he led her out of the cubicle. He slid the curtain shut, cutting off all view of the patient. Standing in the gloom, she could feel the eyes of other nurses, watching her from their different stations in the ICU.

  “Detective Rizzoli,” said Sutcliffe, “you need to let us do our jobs.”

  “I’
m trying to do mine as well. She’s our only witness.”

  “And she’s in critical condition. We need to get her through this crisis before anyone talks to her.”

  “She is conscious, though?”

  “Yes.”

  “She understands what’s going on?”

  He paused. In the low light of the ICU, she could not read his expression. All she could see was the silhouette of his broad shoulders and the reflection of his eyes, glinting green from the nearby monitor banks. “I’m not sure. Frankly, I never expected her to regain consciousness at all.”

  “Why is her blood pressure falling? Is this something new?”

  “A little while ago, she started to panic, probably because of the endotracheal tube. It’s a frightening sensation, to feel a tube in your throat, but it has to stay in to help her breathe. We gave her some Valium when her pressure shot up. Then it suddenly started to crash.”

  A nurse pulled back the cubicle curtain and called through the doorway: “Dr. Sutcliffe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Her pressure’s not responding, even on dopamine.”

  Sutcliffe stepped back into the cubicle.

  Through the open doorway, Rizzoli watched the drama playing out only a few feet away. The nun’s hands were balled up in fists, the tendons of her arms standing out in taut cords as she fought the restraints that bound her wrists to the bed rails. The crown of her head was encased in bandages, and her mouth was obscured by the protruding endotracheal tube, but her face was clearly visible. It looked swollen, the cheeks suffused a bright red. Trapped in that mummifying mass of gauze and tubes, Ursula had the eyes of a hunted animal, the pupils dilated with fear, her gaze frantically darting left, then right, as though in search of escape. The bed rails rattled like the bars of a cage as she yanked against the restraints. Her whole torso lifted off the bed, and the cardiac alarm suddenly squealed.

  Rizzoli’s gaze shot to the monitor, where the line had gone flat.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay!” Sutcliffe said. “She just disconnected one of her leads.” He snapped the wire back in place, and the rhythm reappeared onscreen. A rapid blip-blip-blip.

  “Increase the dopamine drip,” said Yuen. “Let’s push fluids.”

  Rizzoli watched as the nurse opened the IV full bore, unleashing a flood of saline into Ursula’s vein. The nun’s gaze met Rizzoli’s in a final moment of awareness. Just before her eyes started to glaze over, before the last spark of consciousness flickered out, what Rizzoli saw, in that gaze, was mortal fear.